Phone Addiction – The Ultimate Guide

It goes without saying that our phones have become indispensable tools in all aspects of our lives. Regardless of whether we use them for work, leisure, entertainment, or to stay in touch with our loved ones, mobile phones make our lives easier and more convenient.

You might know the familiar feeling when you are in a new place and your phone battery has died – it feels like you are totally lost or your existence has suddenly become increasingly more problematic. All of us rely on our cell phones for the services and facilities they offer so much so that we can barely conceptualize our lives without them.

While most of us are reliant to some extent on our phones, we can safely say that they are a commodity or necessity that makes everything easier. In this respect, we can admit that mobile phone use has become a 21st-century cultural phenomenon, and, as far as we are concerned, this trend is here to stay.

However, overreliance on a phone becomes problematic when we develop a psychological dependence on it. More and more people find it difficult to perform their usual activities without a phone or are increasingly more addicted to tools it facilitates, such as the internet or social media platforms.

This article will discuss a highly controversial problem in today’s society – phone addiction. It will provide a comprehensive overview of its root causes, signs and symptoms and ways in which this addiction can be managed.

What Exactly Defines Phone Addiction?

Research and literature on phone addiction are constantly increasing, as the excessive use of this tool shows more behavioural and emotional problems, especially in children and teenagers. Data from the Pew Research Center shows that around 81% of Americans own a smartphone, compared to 34% in 2011.

The pathological use of phones has led researchers to study their addictive potential, especially in the context of prolonged screen exposure. Although phone addiction is not yet included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), it is considered an impulsive control disorder alongside internet, food, shopping, online sex and work addiction.

There are four main criteria which are used to define an addiction:

• Abstinence
• Lack of control
• Tolerance
• Abuse and Interference with other activities.

According to these criteria, phone addiction can be considered a potential pathology when it leads to negative behavioural changes. This is particularly reinforced especially in the context of new emerging pathologies such as “Nomophobia” (No-Mobile-Phobia), textaphrenia, or ringxiety (the need to constantly check one’s phone for newly received messages), or textiety – having to respond immediately when receiving new messages.

The following criteria also reinforce the concept of phone addiction:

• Conscious and problematic use even in prohibited situations. For example, using mobile phones in cases where this act can lead to familial confrontation or conflict can be an indicator of addiction. The person is aware of the negative consequences of their behaviour but continues to use their phone nevertheless.
• Mental health consequences of using the phone, such as neglecting contact with friends and family to the detriment of browsing the internet or mobile apps.
• Excessive use, urgency, loss of control, craving, and increased use to achieve satisfaction can also be criteria for phone addiction.
• Individuals with this condition can also feel disconnected and upset when they are not able to access their phones.
• Other criteria can refer to anxiety, mood changes, stress and loneliness when one is not able to access their message or send an immediate response.

Although medical and mental health professionals are sceptical about using the term ‘addiction’ when referring to excessive phone use, it is worth noting that many symptoms are common to other behavioural and impulse control disorders, such as:

• Loss of control
• Severe negative consequences
• Withdrawal symptoms when the mobile phone-related behaviours are not practised
• Relapse – picking up the behaviour again after a period of abstinence
• Tolerance – the need to engage in the behaviour more often to achieve the same effects.

Despite the debate in the medical community which has not yet decided whether excessive mobile phone use is an addiction or an impulse control issue, overreliance on mobile phones shares many similarities with compulsive gambling, which is a type of behavioural addiction.

Causes of Phone Addiction

The Dopamine Explanation

Another similarity between behavioural addictions and excessive mobile use is the triggering of a brain chemical called dopamine as a result of compulsive behaviour.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in motivation, reward, and is mostly associated with the pleasant feeling someone experiences after engaging in an activity they enjoy.

When someone uses their mobile phones and receives rewards in the form of social acknowledgement and validation (such as on social media), their brain releases some dopamine. As a result of this, the person associates the activity with something pleasant, comforting and rewarding, which makes them return to the habit over and over again.

However, repeated exposure to the same stimuli wears off the dopamine pathways in the brain, leading to desensitization. This means that someone using a mobile phone on a frequent basis will need more exposure to it to achieve the initial pleasant effects.

Using your phone daily can become so habitual that you might not feel the effects of the dopamine release. In this case, your brain has become so accustomed to the act of checking apps and websites on your phone that it no longer responds in the same way as it initially did.

We might even argue that the majority of people scroll mindlessly on their phones in search of that dopamine hit they get when connecting with others online. Sometimes, we might not even be interested in news, social media updates or new information per se – what we really want, in fact, is that rewarding and addictive feeling that makes us feel ‘high’ for a short while.

Many app developers, especially social media apps, are highly aware of this fact and particularly design them in a format that makes us hooked onto them. The ‘like’ and ‘comment’ options are meant to provide the social reinforcement we need to experience a high dopamine rush. When the effect wears off, we keep coming back over and over again to check our phones, and therefore we become compelled to them.

Impulsivity and Sensation Seeking

Impulsivity is a personality trait that is associated with an increased risk for behavioural addictions, such as excessive phone use. Research indicates that people who score higher on this personality dimension are more likely to use their phones compulsively.

This trait is also characterised by an inability to delay the immediate gratification obtained through mobile use. Naturally, impulsive people also have a decreased self-control and display a sense of urgency, lack of premeditation, and lack of perseverance. This means that someone impulsive will not wait for their urge to check their phone to wear off, but instead will act on it immediately.

Similarly, sensation-seeking means that someone will deliberately look for stimuli that relieve feelings of boredom. People who are more prone to this habit usually need constant sensory engagement and are very sensitive to boredom, which means that they will compulsively look for new things to do. They are always on the lookout for new experiences which are entertaining, varied, uncommon and intense.

Phones provide plenty of sensory stimulation due to the wide availability of information and social platforms they facilitate. As a result, people who score seek new sensations are more likely to get addicted to phone use.

Self-Esteem

Research has documented that low self-esteem can lead to phone abuse. In the virtual world, people can project an ideal version of themselves and even receive social appreciation for it. As a result, having lower self-esteem determines many individuals to escape from their real-life identity and create a virtual one that seems more socially acceptable.

Many people also rely on social media platforms to receive approval from others. Therefore, those who lack the self-confidence to establish nurturing relationships in their real-life can increasingly rely on their virtual connection to achieve the validation they need to feel better about themselves.

Self-Identity

Having access to a cell phone comes with a host of opportunities, such as establishing one’s new identity in the online world. This means that many people begin to associate who they are with their social media platform, virtual connections and with the responses they receive online. This increases the chances for someone to develop a phone addiction because the virtual world, and implicitly their phones, becomes part of their identity. As a result, they can no longer conceptualize their existence in the absence of access to a phone.

Populations at the Highest Risk for Phone Addiction

Studies show that students from higher cultural and economic levels have higher levels of phone dependence. This can be explained by the fact that this demographic category experiences a higher degree of loneliness (while being away from home studying) which students counteract by staying in contact with people online.

Research also shows that children of parents who are addicted to their smartphones also have a higher chance of developing this problem. Children can resort to this behavioural addiction as a result of affective abandonment and emotional neglect.

Without a doubt, young people, and especially adolescents, are at the highest risk of developing smartphone addiction. In this age category, cell phone use is so important that a large percentage of teenagers (27%) between 11 and 14 do not even turn off their phones at night. Unfortunately, studies show that people who become addicted to their phone at an early age have more chances of struggling with this behavioural issue in the future.

Another factor that can explain why teenagers are at most risk of developing smartphone addiction is their reduced ability to exercise self-control. Adolescents have less developed emotional regulation skills than adults and also have more self-esteem needs.

This means that they are more likely to seek validation from peers on social media channels. Similarly, adolescents who grow in families where emotional validation is not met are at a higher risk of turning to their phones as a way of dealing with emotional neglect. This is why it is important for parents to spend as much time as they can with their children and teenagers instead of handing them smartphones and electronic devices.

Psychological Problems Resulting from Phone Addiction

Sleep Issues

The interference of mobile phone use with sleep patterns has been well studied by research. Excessive phone use can lead to sleep cycle disruption, therefore affecting the mental and physical health of the individual.

Furthermore, exposure to blue light emitted by screens leads to a drop in melatonin, a key hormone associated with restful sleep. People who stay up late on their phone can find that their sleep quality diminishes or they have a hard time falling and staying asleep.

This pattern has been found to be most evident in studies on teenagers and students.

Unfortunately, as the phone addiction worsens, sleep quality also tends to significantly decline. This can also be explained by the fact that people who are over-reliant on their phones will tend to prioritise screen time over sleep. They can also be highly unaware of the amount of time they spend on their phones, which can lead them to stay up late in the evening to check up their social media accounts or other websites of interest.

Substance Misuse

Research explains that phone users who are addicted to their devices will also have a higher probability of using various substances, such as alcohol, nicotine, or drugs.

The main explanation for this statement is that users who lose track of the time they spend on their phone are more likely to lead an unhealthy lifestyle, control their urges and impulses, and fail at maintaining an overall balanced life.

Furthermore, the increased number of psychological and psychiatric conditions associated with phone addiction also make some individuals more vulnerable to engaging in substance use.

In fact, it is shown that personality and psychiatric disorders often coexist with substance misuse problems. This means that people who already have a biological predisposition to addictions of any kind are also more likely to engage in excessive phone use as a way of coping with unpleasant moods and emotional states.

Substance misuse can also occur alongside phone addiction because many individuals who use substances also have underlying mental health issues like depression. For example, studies have shown that depressed individuals have a neurological pattern that predisposes them to behavioural addictions, such as excessive internet and phone use.

Personality and Psychiatric Issues

There are plenty of research studies that confirm the link between psychological issues and cell phone addiction. The most common mental health conditions found in people who use their phones excessively are stress, depression, and anxiety.

This conclusion should not come as a surprise. For many people who suffer from a mental disorder, phones can act as a tool for escape and entertainment that temporarily relieves them of psychological discomfort.

Also, it is well-known that many psychological disorders have poor emotional and impulse regulation as common symptom. Therefore, not being able to have control over one’s behaviour can easily lead many individuals to spend hours on their phones without being able to stop the cycle.

A research study found a direct relationship between chronic stress, depression, emotional stability and phone abuse in young women. The paper reinforces the previous findings which state that mental health vulnerability is a clear predisposing factor for phone addiction.

This can be explained by the fact that the more someone uses their phone, the less sensitive they will become the rewarding effects of this behaviour. This is further exacerbated in the case of those with a mental health disorder, who need more screen time to experience the rewarding dopamine effects obtained from spending time on the internet.

Furthermore, phones implicitly bring the promise of relieving feelings of loneliness and isolation that are very common in most mental health disorders. Therefore, people with psychiatric disorders might find it easier to access online communities, interact with virtual connections, and establish relationships from a distance. They seek social interactions that reduce their tension and distress since many of them lack the self-esteem or energy to find those in real interactions. As a result of this, it is expected that the psychological instability caused by mental health conditions will lead to a higher chance of phone addiction.

Symptoms of Phone Addiction

Although most of us use our phones frequently and oftentimes even excessively, it is important to ensure we reduce our screen time as much as possible. Otherwise, we can put ourselves at risk of developing a behavioural addiction to this device. To make sure that we minimise our chances of addiction, we can look out for the following signs and symptoms, both in ourselves and others:

1. Reaching for your phone every time you are alone or bored – Although many of us do this to pass the time more easily, it is worth paying attention to how many times you experience the urge to check your phone every time you have the chance.
2. Waking up many times during the night to check your phone – this habit can be extremely dangerous for our sleep pattern and can be an indicator that we might get addicted to our cell phones.
3. Feeling anxious or distressed when not being able to access your phone – any significant mood changes can also indicate that we rely on our phones to regulate our emotional state.
4. Phone use has led to an accident or injury – This means that our phone takes up so much of our attention that we are willing to put our safety in danger for the sake of staying connected to our device.
5. Phone use interferes with other aspects of your life, such as work, school, or social relationships. When your work performance decreases or you neglect interpersonal relationships to the detriment of screen time, this means that you might meet the criteria for phone addiction.
6. Your loved ones express concerns about your phone use behaviours. Sometimes, we might not be objective about our addiction habits. People around us can better notice when we develop unhealthy habits or get caught in a certain behavioural addiction. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the comments that your loved ones make about your phone use.
7. Failure to stop or reduce screen time and repeated relapses when trying to do so. This factor indicates that the habit of using your phone has already created a biological addiction in your brain and that you may need specialist support to break it.

 Long-Term Effects of Phone Addiction

1. Depressive Symptoms – Longitudinal studies looking into the long-term effects of excessive phone use have found that people can develop depression as a result of this behavioural addiction. This mental health condition can develop as individuals are increasingly more isolated from their social communities and groups and seek to fulfil their emotional needs via the internet.
2. Scattered Attention – Reduced focus abilities are reported by more and more people in the last few years, which can be caused by virtual overstimulation. When you spend a lot of time browsing on your phone, you receive sensory stimulation in the form of videos, ads, images, and messages. However, this can lead to impaired attention and reduced ability to concentrate. Ultimately, excessive phone use alters your brain and implicitly your cognitive functions, which is why you might find that your attention is reduced after prolonged screen time.
3. Impaired Social Relationships – Spending a lot of time online can give you the false illusion that you are connected to other people. While in some cases this is true, we should not forget that the most important social connections are the ones that we are able to entertain in real life. This apparent illusion can make people neglect their friendships and connections to the detriment of virtual relationships. In the longer term, this can create feelings of intense isolation and loneliness, which can fuel mental health disorders.
4. Altered Brain – There is one good reason why many tech companies advise parents to keep their children away from prolonged phone use. Excessive screen time affects many brain functions, such as cognition, attention, memory, and concentration. Frequent distractions can actually program our brains to lose track of focus and to go from one stimulus to another. Over time, this can change the way our brain functions and leave us with scattered attention and the inability to inhibit distractions.
5. Poor Time Management – The most valuable things that we give in exchange for the time we spend on our phones are attention and time. We might think that spending one hour per day in front of the screen is harmless. However, this habit can soon take control of our time and lives, leading us to waste many hours in the virtual world. We can become so enmeshed in the things happening online that we don’t realise how much time we are wasting daily. As a result of this, we can develop poor time management habits by procrastinating the most urgent tasks to the detriment of screen time.
6. Reduced Fitness & Sedentary Lifestyle – How many times have you not lost track of time while scrolling through your phone on the couch? We all say that we will just check something online for five minutes and then end up staying there for hours. The virtual world can literally make us forget about everything, even about the importance of staying fit and active. A study has shown that students who spent up to 14 hours daily on their phone were overall less healthy and fit than those who only used their phone for a few hours.
7. Eye Strain – Prolonged exposure to blue light, such as the one emitted by phone screens can cause damage to the eye retina. Retinal damage has been warned by American opticians to potentially cause loss of central vision. Similarly, many phone users have reported in a survey that screen exposure leads to eye discomfort.
8. Hearing Damage – While chatting to someone on the phone will not affect your hearing, using headphones to listen to loud music can have negative consequences. According to the National Institute on Deafness, around 26 million Americans suffer from noise-induced hearing damage. One source of noise is the one coming from your phone when listening to loud music. Hearing experts advise that listening noises above 85 decibels (the noise level of heavy traffic) can cause damage to our hearing.
9. Increased Stress – Having cell phones means that we are also available to notifications in all their forms. Even if we are not always bombarded with work calls or text messages from friends, the pressure of being constantly ‘online’ creates subconscious stress that we are not always aware of. This can be felt in constant tension and tiredness or in the sense of not being able to fully relax and switch our brains off.
10. Back Problems – While we are deeply engrossed in our social media feed and crunched over our screens, our backs experience a lot of strain. Unfortunately, our phones can be so captivating that we forget about the importance of keeping a good posture and a straight back. The British Chiropractic Association has advised that the number of people reporting back pain and problems have increased rapidly over the last few years. This rise is directly proportional to the rise in screen time, which means that phone use plays an important role in our posture and back problems.

Getting Help

Even if you are in the early stages of phone addiction or you have been struggling with this condition for a long time, it is important to seek support as soon as possible.

Since the causes of phone addiction are still very complex, you can benefit from a combination of different interventions, such as counselling, psychotherapy, self-help methods, and support groups. 

Some interventions that have been found to be useful in treating phone addiction are:

Psychotherapy

Phone addiction is usually triggered by other deeper causes, such as low-self esteem, loneliness, depression, or mental health issues.

Therefore, to reduce excessive phone use, one must first attend to the subtle causes of phone addiction.

A psychotherapist can provide support in this respect by helping individuals with phone addiction resolve their emotional problems and develop healthy ways of controlling their screen time.

During the psychotherapy course, people can also learn to implement useful skills such as:

• Emotional regulation
• Stress reduction
• Time management 
• Behavioural management
• Healthy communication

Similarly, psychotherapy is highly useful in treating underlying mental conditions like depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, and personality disorders that fuel phone addiction.

Many individuals engaging in a psychotherapy course can see an improvement in their phone addiction symptoms within 6-12 weeks. There are more practical psychotherapeutic approaches such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) which focuses on changing one’s emotions, thoughts and behaviours related to excessive phone use.

Finding Out the Underlying Reasons

Researchers believe that people use their phones excessively because they run away from comforting real issues in their lives that are difficult to solve.

For example, if someone is afraid of communicating with people in real life, they would rather talk to people online instead of developing the necessary skills to maintain healthy relationships.

In this sense, phone addiction serves as a constant distraction from problems that people do not feel capable of addressing by themselves. Therefore, the first step is to find out the real causes bothering them and then seeking adequate support to overcome the problem.

Self-Help Methods

In cases where phone addiction is in an incipient phase, you can try self-help practices that help you gradually reduce the time you spend online. Some useful methods are:

• Mindfulness meditation – whenever you feel the urge to check your phone as a way of dealing with stress and tension, you can instead switch it off and simply engage in a meditation practice. Observe your thoughts and desire to check your phone but decide not to act on them.
• Taking up new hobbies outside the virtual world. If you find that you tend to check your phone out of boredom, try to introduce activities that keep your mind occupied, so that you do not have to think about looking at notifications.
• Give your phone to a trusted friend for several hours a day. If screen time interferes with your work productivity, give your phone to someone you trust so that you are not tempted to look at it constantly.
• Set clear limits on how much time you spend online. For example, you can give yourself one hour in the evening to stay online and place firm boundaries on screen time outside this interval.
• Ask a friend to hold you accountable. Behavioural changes are more effective when we have to report our progress to someone else. Therefore, try to reduce the time you spend on your phone by staying accountable to someone you trust.
• No screen time in the evening before going to bed. Since our willpower is a lot weaker when we are tired, try to avoid checking your phone when you are at a higher risk of getting carried away by social media platforms, such as before going to bed. Set a rule of not looking at your phone after 10/11 pm or simply place your device in another room outside your bedroom.
• Delete time-consuming apps. Some apps are particularly designed to keep us hooked for as long as possible through the videos, images, and content they provide. If you know that a certain type of content makes you glued to your screen for hours, simply deactivate the app or set clear limits for how much and when you are going to use it.
• Learn from relapses and setbacks. No recovery from addictions is ever linear. Many people can experience a lot of initial progress and relapse at some point in their journey. Similarly, if you find that after staying away from your phone for a while is followed by a period of relapse, try to learn from your triggers.

What sort of events make you go back to your phone addiction? Are there any emotions that make you want to evade the virtual world? What are your strengths and weaknesses and how can you use them to your advantage? Make a note of all these factors and take them into account when going back to your recovery process.

Support Groups

If your addiction to your smartphone is highly distressing, know that you are not alone. More people than you think are actually affected by this behavioural problem.

An intervention that can help reduce your screen time is joining local support groups where you can discuss your symptoms and struggles with other people. You may find that your struggles are shared by others, which can make you feel less alone and isolated in your recovery journey.

The Bottom Line

Without a doubt, phone addiction is one of the biggest behavioural concerns of modern society. We all are somehow predisposed to this addiction type, now that many aspects of our lives are facilitated by phones.

While a higher degree of phone use is normal, given the digitalisation of society, we should learn to identify when this habit becomes a cause of concern for our mental health.

Some people are more predisposed to excessive phone use than others given their mental health history, sociodemographic background and other individual factors; therefore, recognizing the vulnerability factors is key to preventing phone addiction from taking over one’s life.

As seen in this article, the long-term effects of phone addiction can be seen in decreased mental health, impaired social relationships and health problems like eye and hearing damage. Prioritising online relationships to the detriment of genuine and authentic real-life connections is also a risk imposed by excessive phone use.

Treating this behavioural addiction is essential for our mental and physical health. There are various treatment approaches that people struggling with this issue can benefit from, such as psychotherapy, counselling, and self-help methods. However, the most important aspect of treating this behavioural addiction is finding out the underlying root causes that feed it.